


Matter for Concern

by Jain



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Community: i-reversebang, First Time, M/M, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Reverse Big Bang Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-30
Updated: 2012-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-11 02:12:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/pseuds/Jain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames gets hurt, and Arthur investigates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matter for Concern

**Author's Note:**

> Written to an art prompt by [motetus](http://motetus.livejournal.com/), who then did an additional illustration based on this story. [See both pictures!](http://motetus.livejournal.com/105718.html) (Plus an additional illustration motetus did for [bauble](http://bauble.livejournal.com/), who also claimed the original art prompt and whose story you can find linked in motetus's post.)

Eames was late. The rundown and brainstorming session was scheduled for ten a.m., later than Arthur would have preferred but earlier than anyone else on the team liked, and it was going on ten forty-five with no sign of him yet. No response to Arthur's three text messages or his attempted phone call, either.

Arthur sighed and did his best to push aside his annoyance. Eames didn't make a habit of being late--in fact, he was most often the first person there after Arthur--and he'd just arrived in Chicago from Jakarta and would be suffering the attendant jetlag. None of which excused his lateness, but it did mitigate it somewhat.

"Hey," Arthur said, raising his voice to be heard at the other end of the warehouse where Maria and Ariadne were having a discussion about pre-WWII architecture, judging by the snatches of conversation he'd been able to catch from twenty-five feet away. "We might as well get started. I can catch Eames up later."

Maria and Ariadne looked at him with almost identical frowns, whether because they wanted to wait for Eames or because they didn't want to end their conversation, he neither knew nor cared. Arthur was willing to admit that Eames offered more to the team than just his expertise in forging, and it would be useful to have his input even in the earliest planning stages of the job. But they were running on a timetable, and Eames's potential contributions weren't more valuable than _getting to work_.

He was about to argue that point, when Maria glanced at her watch and nodded a somewhat reluctant agreement. Arthur grabbed a notebook and pen from his desk and moved to a chair near Maria's and Ariadne's couch.

"You're not worried that something might be wrong?" Ariadne asked. "I mean, late is one thing, but not answering his phone is just weird."

Arthur raised his eyebrows at her. " _You_ didn't seem to be very worried a minute ago, unless you usually express concern for your colleagues by discussing internecine Japanese cities."

She flushed but raised her chin indignantly. "You were at your computer. I thought you were looking into it, and that there wasn't anything I could do to help so I might as well stay out of the way."

He shook his head. "Eames is half an hour late. He's probably asleep or in the shower or he forgot to charge his phone _again_."

"But--"

"If we don't hear from him by noon, then we can think about worrying," Arthur said repressively. "In the meantime, we're on the clock. Maria?"

Maria rose smoothly to her feet and took several files out of her bag, passing one each to him and Ariadne and keeping one for herself. "Our job is quasi-legal--" She shot a quick look at Ariadne and added, "--which doesn't necessarily mean safe or easy. It _does_ , however, mean that we get paid for our work, not just our results. It also means that we don't have to worry about waylaying and sedating the mark; the Chicago police department already has him under custody, and they'll knock him out for us whenever we're ready."

"Am I the only one feeling a little disillusioned by this?" Ariadne asked.

Maria gave her a pitying smile. Arthur shrugged. "As interrogation techniques go, dream extraction is pretty mild. And we're only finding some key info for the police; they still need to build the case."

Maria nodded and continued, "The mark is a career criminal with a string of successful robberies, including a major haul at a bank in which he got away with approximately two million in cash and valuables. Our job is first to determine where he's stashed the loot and second to determine whether or not he had any accomplices and, if he did, who they might be.

"If he's militarized, it was done on the downlow; Arthur's and my preliminary research hasn't found any evidence of it, but that doesn't mean he hasn't been. As I mentioned previously, the police will prepare him for us as soon as we're ready. The main difficulty is going to be performing an extraction with only two people."

"Who--" Ariadne began, frowning.

"Eames and I are going under; you'll be there to watch over us and make sure nothing goes wrong. Officially, Arthur's a consultant whom the police have no need to ever meet."

"Unofficially," Arthur put in, "I'm the one responsible for breaking you out if the CPD--or, more likely, the CIA with the cooperation of the CPD--decides to keep you."

Ariadne's eyes rounded.

"We don't think it's a great risk, or none of us would have taken the job," Maria said quickly. "But if it's too hot for you, we can keep you on as the architect and hire an unknown to keep watch. We'd rather have you, though."

Ariadne turned to Arthur, looking quizzical and nervous in equal measure, and he gazed back at her with an open expression. She _would_ be useful: cute and innocent-looking so that people would be disinclined to detain her, and with a family who would make a fuss if she were to disappear; clever enough to know right away if something was going wrong either in the dream or topside; and as trustworthy as one could get in this profession. But she could figure all of that out on her own, and Arthur's making those arguments aloud would only give her something to argue against.

"I can do it," she said at last.

Arthur gave her an encouraging smile. "The most likely scenario is that you go, you do the job, and you return; no muss, no fuss. We're just taking precautions in case something goes wrong."

"Precautions are good," she said. "I'm a big fan."

"Great," Maria said, clapping her hands together once. "Preliminaries out of the way, do you want me to talk you through the details of the job, or would you rather have some time to read the file on your own?" The question was for Ariadne (and, if he deigned to show up, Eames); Maria had already shown Arthur an earlier copy.

"File," Ariadne said firmly.

"Okay. In that case, I'm going to get myself another coffee. Anyone want something?" Ariadne and Arthur both shook their heads. "I'll be back soon. Take notes if you like, don't if you don't, we'll start brainstorming once everyone's up to speed."

Ariadne gave Arthur a small grin, apparently giddy with the rush of a new job, and Arthur found himself smiling back. This might not be the most exciting job he'd ever done, but he was working with a good team, and the objective was at least more interesting than the typical corporate espionage. He grabbed his updated copy of the file and headed back to his desk, humming quietly to himself.

* * *

Around eleven fifteen, before Maria had returned from Starbucks, there was the distinctive rap of Eames's knuckles on the door--three short, one long; three short, one long...the first two measures of Beethoven's Fifth--before it opened, followed by the faint scrape of Eames's shoes on concrete and the sound of the door closing behind him. 

"Eames!" Ariadne called cheerfully; Arthur purposefully didn't raise his head from his work. And then she gasped and said, "Oh my God!" in a tone of real alarm and Arthur was up and moving towards the door, one hand reaching for his gun, before she could say anything else.

He slowed when he saw that it _was_ only Eames, but a rather more battered and bruised Eames than he'd seen topside at any point in their long acquaintance. Eames was sporting a black eye, a split lip, and an assortment of cuts and scrapes, and he had the ginger stance of someone whose injuries weren't confined to his face.

Arthur frowned. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Nothing," Eames said, with an attempt at a smile that looked more painful than reassuring. Then, in response to Arthur's skeptical look, he amended that to, "Nothing that concerns you. I'm dealing with a small personal problem. It won't affect the job."

"I don't think anything that makes your face look like that is a _small_ problem," Ariadne said.

Eames just shrugged, as though her objection were too insignificant to require a response.

"And did this small personal problem beat you up here or in Indonesia?" Arthur asked pointedly, despite knowing the answer; a couple of the cuts were still seeping blood and had to be very recent.

"Here," Eames admitted, adding quickly, "But I'm certain I wasn't followed to the warehouse. Truly, a few ibuprofen and a good night's sleep are all I need to be right as rain."

Almost before he'd finished speaking, Ariadne was back with a small bottle of pills and a bottle of water, both of which she handed to Eames.

"Cheers, love," Eames said. He tucked the bottle of water under his arm so that he could open the pills and shake three out into his palm. Then he returned the pillbottle to Ariadne and knocked the pills back with a healthy swallow of water. "There," he said. "Now, why doesn't someone get me up to speed on this job?"

Which sounded like a fine idea to Arthur--they'd wasted enough time already--but if Eames thought that Arthur would simply forget recent events, then he was sorely mistaken.

* * *

When Arthur returned to his hotel room that night, he ate dinner--lamb and new potatoes and asparagus, poured himself a tumbler of brandy, and settled down on the bed with his laptop. He maintained a carefully hidden folder that contained info on everyone working in dreamshare and their known associates: partners, previous employers, enemies, etc. Eames's file was very long, and it took him quite a while to narrow Eames's list of associates down to those who might conceivably be in the city (as opposed to out of the country or in prison or dead), and to then send out feelers regarding those people's whereabouts.

There was a chance that Eames's assailant had been for hire, but only a very small chance. For better or worse, the dreamshare community didn't go in much for physical intimidation topside. If you wanted to threaten someone, it was usually simpler to take them through a few rounds while they were under: there was virtually no chance of the local law enforcement's getting involved, and you could do a hell of a lot more "persuading" with no risk of an accidental corpse. The only real exceptions were if you _wanted_ a corpse; contract hits weren't uncommon.

All of which meant that, most likely, this attack had been _personal_. If it hadn't been Eames's first morning in Chicago, then Arthur's task might've seemed impossible. Eames had a talent for getting under people's skin, when he was in a foul mood himself. But ten in the morning on a workday wasn't a time that Eames would choose to pick a fight, which meant that someone else probably picked it for him.

Arthur took another sip of brandy. Unfortunately, that still didn't leave a very narrow field. Arthur could think of half a dozen people in dreamshare who might not want Eames dead--at least, not enough to risk killing him themselves--but who wouldn't pass up the opportunity to punch him in the nose. Add Eames's family and "friends" into the mix, a number of whom apparently thought Eames was an unmitigated asshole, and there were a lot of people who'd potentially been responsible for Eames's face this morning.

Arthur tipped his glass back to finish his brandy, then closed his email and opened a tab to continue researching the BMO Harris Bank robbery. A lot of people might have beaten Eames, but only one had actually done it, and Arthur was confident he'd figure out the person's identity soon.

* * *

Arthur's phone rang. He snapped awake on the first ring, located his phone on the nightstand on the second, cleared his throat on the third, and was able to answer it sounding mostly alive.

"Arthur," the caller said. "Kellan. You wanted info on the Aetra job?"

"I did," Arthur said.

"Well, word is, Victor made a weak batch of Somnacin, and everyone woke up fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. Jillian and Eames managed to swap in another dose and put everyone back under before the mark could do more than flutter his eyelids. They completed the extraction and got paid no problem. That all you needed to know?"

"That's it, thanks," Arthur said.

"My pleasure," Kellan said and hung up.

Arthur set his phone on the nightstand and picked up his pen and notebook to jot down the key points of the conversation before he could fall back to sleep.

* * *

Working as a civilian contractor didn't pay as well as crime did, but there were other benefits. One of the best parts of this particular job was that the team could have multiple shots at extraction without substantially increasing the risk. They couldn't go wild, of course; sooner or later the mark's mind would become primed to their hostile presence, like antibodies recognizing a familiar virus, and then they'd be in trouble. But if their first attempt at extraction was a failure, they might have two or three more tries easily. Which meant that they could lead with their simplest plan and work up from there.

"What if we just skip the bit where we nudge the mark into hiding his secret in a safe location, and instead get him to tell us directly? One level only. The mark's in a bar. Eames or I hit on him, and he spills everything in an effort to impress," Maria suggested. "What's his type, Arthur?"

"Curvy," Arthur said, "based on his porn preferences. And his last three girlfriends were all redheads."

"Eames it is," Maria said; she was attractive enough to play a seductress, but she couldn't forge and was a slim brunette.

"Except that he's not going to spill his top secrets that easily," Eames objected. "He wants to show off--almost every crook does--but if he hasn't cracked for the CPD, he's not going to bare all for some unknown woman in a bar. Especially since the man's fairly easy on the eyes himself; having a gorgeous woman hit on him won't be all that noteworthy. No, he has to feel out of his depth, he has to want to _work_ for it."

"Lesbians," Ariadne said suddenly, and Eames grinned at her.

"Precisely."

"And the part where you get to make out with Maria, of course, didn't factor into this at all," Arthur said dryly.

Ariadne raised an eyebrow at him, and he gave her a cool smile in response.

"I _have_ always wanted to do lesbian porn," Eames sighed unashamedly.

"Minus the 'porn,'" Maria said. "Because there are some things I will not do for a job, and having sex with you is definitely one of them."

* * *

Maria gave them all a week to prepare for their first attempt. That was at least four more days than they strictly needed, but Arthur appreciated her conscientiousness. Besides, it wasn't the best strategy to alert the CPD to just how talented they were at their jobs.

Giving them a significant boost, Ariadne already had a generic bar scene in her portfolio. All she had to do was, first, make it look a bit more American and less European and, second, tweak the lighting and rearrange the furniture so that the mark's corner of the bar felt more private and intimate.

The day after she'd finished that project, Eames dragged all of them down to admire his new forge--who was both beautiful and eminently believable in the way Eames's forges always were; nose a tad too large and eyes a tad too wide-set for unreal perfection--and to critique his and Maria's performance.

"Maybe put a hand on her wrist when you lean in to kiss her," Ariadne suggested.

"Who's 'her' in this sentence?" Eames asked.

"The one who's actually a woman," Arthur said dryly. "Also, both of you need to look a little more relaxed."

"We are as loose as a pair of geese," Eames said indignantly.

"Not that kind of relaxed," Arthur said. "You don't look uncomfortable, you just look...performative."

Ariadne nodded. "I thought so, too. The last thing you want is for Donaldson to think you're doing this for his benefit."

"We led with a quick hello kiss," Maria argued. "We're obviously a couple."

"Not so obvious by this point in your performance," Arthur said, and Maria sighed.

"Fine," she said. "Maria's and Emily's kiss, take twelve." She rested one elbow on the bar and leaned in towards Eames a little, said something about skiing in Colorado that Arthur could barely hear over the ambient sounds of the bar.

Eames rested a casually proprietary hand on her forearm and ducked in to kiss her on the lips mid-sentence. Maria stilled briefly, then smiled against Eames's mouth for a moment before she kissed back.

Ariadne took a sharp breath--as she had for kisses one, three, six, seven, and ten--and, this time, Arthur was inclined to agree with her. Maria and Eames were both lovely, but now they looked as though they were really starting to _connect_. As they watched, Eames stroked his thumb in a sweeping, rhythmic motion along Maria's arm a couple of times before he pulled away from the kiss.

They exchanged warm, slightly embarrassed smiles; the expressions of women who didn't normally indulge in PDAs, but who weren't about to apologize for doing so now.

"That's it!" Ariadne said, breaking the moment.

Arthur nodded. "Not bad. A few more hours of practice, and you should be set."

"A few more hours of practice, and I might become physically incapable of faking enthusiasm for this, even when it counts," Maria said flatly.

"Sorry to disappoint your slavedriving urges, Arthur, but a little improvisation can be a very good thing," Eames agreed.

The timer ran out just then, so Arthur continued the conversation while sliding the cannula out of his left foot (his arms were kind of a mess at the moment and needed a break), sticking a bandaid over the injection site, and putting his sock and shoe back on. "How about a dress rehearsal on Tuesday, just to be sure?"

"That sounds fine," Maria said. "Any other preparations we have yet to do? Eames? Ariadne?"

Eames shook his head. Ariadne thought a moment and then did the same.

"In that case, I'm giving you all the next three days off. I'll be in and out of the warehouse, and I'm sure Arthur will be, as well. Eames and Ariadne, if you need access to a PASIV at any point in the next three days, get in touch with one of us. If you think of any mistakes we've made or if anything else important comes up, get in touch with _all_ of us. I'll see you back here Tuesday morning, eleven a.m."

"See you then," Ariadne chirped, as cheerful at Maria's announcement as a kid with a snow day.

Arthur turned automatically towards Eames, searching for...what? He wasn't sure, not that it even mattered; Eames's bland smile wouldn't help elucidate anything.

"'Til Tuesday," Eames said, still smiling at Arthur, in a gently mocking tone--though it was possible that Arthur was reading too much into it--and followed Ariadne out the door.

* * *

There were six new emails in Arthur's inbox when he returned to his hotel: one from his mother wondering passive-aggressively whether she'd see him at Thanksgiving this year, one from Cobb ditto, two new job offers, a report of Eames's family's recent airplane travel (Eames's half-sister had flown to Dublin three weeks ago; a cousin had flown to Zurich last weekend), and an email letting him know that Sergei, an extractor who remembered Eames unfondly, was serving time in Australia for kidnapping and battery due to a botched snatch-and-sedate.

Arthur crossed Sergei and all of Eames's family off his list of suspects. There were only four more names to check out on his "Most Likely" list; whenever he had a free moment, he should start generating a second tier of suspects to investigate.

* * *

"Your face is looking better," Arthur said by way of a greeting when he entered the warehouse and found Eames sitting at Ariadne's desk, sketching something in an oversized notebook. (Eames never wanted his own desk, but cheerfully appropriated others' as needed.)

"Why, thank you, Arthur. You're looking lovely today, too."

"Not what I meant," Arthur said and placed his laptop bag on his desk. He busied himself with setting up his laptop and said casually, "Did you ever get that personal problem taken care of?"

"As promised," Eames said, the faintest edge in his voice, and Arthur gave up trying to be subtle.

"Because if there's even a _chance_ that whatever's going on with you will bite us in the ass later, you know it's better to come clean now, while we still have a chance to do damage control."

"That won't be necessary," Eames said. "And I came here for some peace and quiet, so if you don't mind..."

Arthur held his hands up in surrender. "Just making sure," he said and turned his attention to Donaldson's high school record.

* * *

The biggest problem with perfectly smooth, painless jobs was that they occasionally made Arthur feel foolish for the obsessive level of detail he brought to his work. Almost a month of tracking down every available piece of information on Craig Donaldson, to the point where Arthur quite possibly knew more of the minutiae of his life than Donaldson remembered himself, and all to develop a plan that utilized the simple and unremarkable fact that Donaldson liked voluptuous redheads. Twenty to one, Eames could have forged a gorgeous, small-breasted blonde, and the plan would still have worked.

Admittedly, there were certain key pieces of information that were pertinent to any extraction--the mark's militarization status, mental stability, and drug use (both legal and illegal)--that were often among the mark's most carefully concealed secrets. Arthur couldn't begrudge those hours of research too much when neglecting to make that effort might result in catastrophic failure.

And not having to break his team out of a CIA black site was an unmitigated plus, so when the payment was deposited into their account on schedule and just minutes before Maria called him to confirm that the job was done and the team had gotten out cleanly, Arthur didn't bother feeling more than a twinge of annoyance at the anticlimax.

Right after Maria hung up, Ariadne called.

"That may have been the most stressful eight minutes of my life," she announced.

"You've been to Limbo," Arthur reminded her absently, doublechecking that everyone's payment shares had been delivered to them properly.

"And that was very stressful," she said in agreement. "But at least in Limbo no one _stared_ at me the way those three police officers did. By the end of it, I was almost ready to confess to the bank robbery myself."

"There were only three of them?" Arthur said, frowning. That seemed very...trusting.

"Oh, no, there were eight officers in the room. The three I'm talking about were the ones assigned to stare at me personally."

Arthur's frown eased. Eight was a far more expected number than three.

"Anyway," Ariadne said, "I'm mostly calling to let you know that I have a master's thesis due in four and a half months, so you can't call me with any jobs between now and then, especially not fun jobs in which I get to help catch bank robbers and give Eames advice on how to kiss girls, because I'll inevitably take the jobs and flunk out of grad school and ruin my future career plans."

"Message received," Arthur said, his mouth twitching into a smile despite himself. If Ariadne was already reduced to nervous babble by her looming master's thesis, he didn't even want to see what she'd be like closer to deadline. He made a mental note to send her periodic coffee gift baskets. Ariadne didn't deal in the currency of favors as most of the dreamshare community did, but, to her, friendship was inseparable from loyalty. It wouldn't hurt Arthur to reaffirm that connection while she was on vacation from dreamshare.

"Awesome. See you in five months!"

"See you," Arthur echoed.

He held his phone in his hand for several seconds after hanging up, then slipped it into his pocket. He typically checked in with each team member as soon as a job had been completed successfully, but contacting Eames for that brief, perfunctory conversation wasn't a priority. They had something far more important to discuss.

* * *

"Arthur?" Eames said, peering at him through the small gap he'd opened in his hotel room door. "What's going on? Is there a problem?"

"Let me in," Arthur said, then waited as Eames slipped the chain off the door so that he could enter and close and deadbolt it behind himself.

"What is it?" Eames repeated, the line between his eyebrows deepening.

"James Donoghue," Arthur said and watched Eames startle slightly before he clamped down on his reaction.

"Jesus Christ, Arthur, you absolute madman. I told you to leave it alone."

The small part of Arthur that had been hoping he'd made a mistake tightened with renewed resolve. "Well, I didn't."

"I'd gathered as much, thank you."

Eames didn't seem inclined to add anything to that, so Arthur continued, "He's your ex; you dated last year."

"I'm aware of that."

Arthur frowned in annoyance. "You know, this reticence really isn't necessary. I _know_ he's the one who attacked you, and I'm offering to help."

"The interesting thing about boyfriends," Eames said in a blandly contemplative tone that made Arthur want to shake him, as horrifyingly inappropriate as that reaction was under the circumstances, "is that if they beat you up while you're still together, then that's domestic abuse, and one's friends are justified in making a nuisance of themselves trying to push him out of one's life. But if the same person beats you up after you've broken up, well, then it's just some bloke being an arsehole, and one's friends must simply piss off."

"Actually, I think it's stalking," Arthur corrected. "And it's sure as hell battery, and, either way, it's intolerable."

Eames winced slightly. "Arthur. I'm going to tell you the whole story, and then you will lose the last shreds of whatever meager respect you might once have had for me, but you will see that this entire sordid affair is 1) not what you think, and 2) none of your fucking business. All right?"

Arthur raised his eyebrows, not willing to commit himself but wanting to hear whatever Eames had to say. Eames turned to sit on a plush armchair, waving Arthur towards its pair, and waited until Arthur sat down before he would continue.

"Right," Eames said. "So, Jamie is _not_ stalking me or punishing me for leaving him or trying to terrify me into returning to him or whatever else you've been worrying about. What happened was, we dated for a few months and he cheated on me, and I repaid that favor by setting his car on fire--not while he was in it--and when, by complete coincidence, he was here on business at the same time _I_ was here on business and we ran into each other at an otherwise charming cafe, he decided to repay me in turn.

"I fought back, of course, but I didn't actually want to _kill_ him for all that he's a dreadful plonker, so I kept it to fists, until we finally retreated with honor served on both sides. End of story."

"And you haven't seen or heard from him since then?" Arthur asked.

"Nary a glimpse nor a whisper. Trust me, I know him, and he's not the sort to engage in a vendetta. It wouldn't even occur to him. Though if I run into him unexpectedly again, I wouldn't be surprised by another punch."

Arthur nodded shortly. It was a plausible story--he could look into the bit about the car to try to confirm it--and, if true, meant that Eames probably wasn't in any immediate danger. "Okay, then. You'll let me know if that changes."

"Why?" Eames asked, then waved his hand in a 'yes, yes' gesture. "Yes, I know, you've extended an offer of help to me. But why would you bother? The job's over; we've been paid and are all ready to move on. So why are you bothering with my personal problems? Especially ones that are, objectively speaking, at least partly my own fault."

Arthur frowned. "He cheated on you first."

"Yes, he did, and did you miss the part where I set his _car_ on fire? And it was a nice one, too. Damned if I can remember the make and model now, but Jamie was quite proud of it."

Arthur's frown deepened. "You can't remember the model of the car you set on fire."

"Your priorities are truly wondrous, Arthur," Eames said.

"Sorry," Arthur said insincerely. "It just seems like a relevant detail."

"Yes, very relevant if I'd had any desire to tell this story to anyone ever. But I hadn't, and so I let it slip my mind."

"Seriously, I don't know what you're so embarrassed about," Arthur said. "If _I'd_ blown up a car belonging to a cheating douchebag ex, I'd tell everyone."

"That's because you're insane, darling," Eames said fondly. "Trust me, there is no part of this story that makes me look good. Though it's very flattering to my ego that you disagree."

"Well, I'm glad I could boost your self-esteem, I guess."

"We're not friends," Eames said, and Arthur frowned in confusion until he realized with a creeping sense of unease that that wasn't a response to his statement or even a non-sequitur but a return to Eames's earlier question: why would Arthur offer to help him?

"No, but we've known each other for years and worked enough jobs together that I'm not...indifferent to what happens to you," he said. "Not to mention that you're too good a forger to lose you for such a stupid reason."

"Mmm," Eames said noncommittally. "I wonder how you were planning to help me if Jamie really _had_ been an abusive stalker."

And that fifteen seconds of warning Arthur's unease had given him meant _nothing_ , and he froze for a long, guilty moment, because the real answer was, "I was planning to shoot him in the head," and the acceptable answer was...what? Restraining orders were a joke, a battery charge nearly impossible to obtain so long after the fact, and in either case a legal battle would be so potentially dangerous for _Eames_ that they couldn't risk it. Eames knew that Arthur knew that Eames would've fought back, so simply offering to beat Jamie up for him would've been worthless.

"I didn't have a plan yet. I figured we'd come up with one together," Arthur said after much too long a pause.

"Bullshit," Eames said in a hugely satisfied tone. "You always have a plan."

"Not always," Arthur said with some bitterness, because if he always had a plan, he'd know what to say _now_ when Eames was hounding him for an answer that he couldn't give and when every lie that he could think of was too ridiculous to be believed.

"Always when it matters," Eames persisted. "And this mattered to you, didn't it, Arthur? _I_ mattered--" until Arthur snapped:

"Fuck it! You obviously know the answer to your question. Why do you need me to say it so badly?"

Eames gave him a curiously intent look. "Because I want to hear it. And, once I have, I'll take you to bed with me and let you up sometime next week--" Arthur's heart skipped a beat "--since apparently you've interpreted my flirting madly with you the past eight years to mean something other than 'I've fallen in love with you, Arthur. Anytime you want to give a relationship a go, just ask.'" He gave Arthur a wry smile. "If you're actually not interested, and all this was just your charming emotionally constipated way of saying that we're friends after all, then I'd appreciate it if you could say so and leave me to nurse my humiliation alone."

Arthur shook his head. "I was going to kill him for hurting you," he said, his heart pounding doubletime at the confession despite Eames's little speech.

"Oh, thank God," Eames said fervently, then apparently replayed that exchange in his head and laughed, saying, "I mean, don't, obviously. In fact, let's stipulate right now that I'm generally opposed to killing people except under the strictest definitions of self-defense. But I'm glad I wasn't wrong about how you felt."

Arthur blanked his face to keep a grimace off of it. Eames acted so surprised that Arthur had misinterpreted his flirting, and then he turned around and responded to an actual declaration of love--or, okay, a declaration of murderous intent, but it came to the same thing--with laughter and stupid jokes and _not having sex with Arthur as he'd promised_. No wonder Arthur had never taken him seriously before.

Fortunately, Arthur was goal-oriented enough for the both of them. He started working on his tie before he'd even finished rising from the chair and was more than halfway undressed by the time he reached the bed. He was followed along his route by a series of hasty thumps and rustling noises that made it clearer than looking that Eames was only half a step behind him.

When he was down to just his boxer-briefs, already beginning to tent obscenely in the front, he turned around to face Eames, who froze under the weight of Arthur's regard. Eames had apparently opted to shove underwear and trousers down at once; he stood caught in the middle of stripping them off entirely, his right leg out and his left leg tangled in a couple layers of fabric.

Always a handsome man, even in his hideous suits and unfortunate hairstyle, when naked, Eames was almost breathtakingly beautiful, all heavy layers of muscle under smooth, golden skin just beginning to pink unevenly across his chest. It was nearly as enticing a sign of arousal as his tight nipples and purpling erection; Arthur wanted to press himself right up against him and let that uneven heat burn against his own skin.

"Keep going," Arthur said, and Eames flushed and stopped tracing Arthur's body with his eyes and kicked his pants entirely off.

"'m not sure I ever got naked with a bloke without even kissing him before," Eames said, voice a little hoarse.

The corners of Arthur's mouth twitched up into a smile. "Is that a hint for me to kiss you or to get naked?" he asked.

Eames laughed. "Can it be both?"

"Sure," Arthur said generously and brushed a quick kiss over Eames's mouth, pulled away almost immediately to slip off his underwear, and leaned forward once more to kiss him again, deeper and harder. Their dicks rubbed together, tracing wetly over each other's stomachs, as they kissed and touched each other, until Arthur pulled away at last to draw an unsteady breath and say, "I believe I was promised a bed," just before yanking Eames down onto it with him.


End file.
